Tag Archives: HD

So I’ve been with sky TV for a year now. Having paid £59 per month for my HD package I am now presented with the concept of my bill going up to £82 per month! Thats a massive price increase, and a huge amount to pay. Yes I have broadband, sky movies and HD, but still, where do these prices actually come from?

Ill tell you where – it all derives from a serious lack of competition. Where I live SKY is the only provider of subscription based TV and I know this is the same issue with people up and down the country. We live in a digital age but yet there has still been a serious lack of investment in the data communications infrastructure. I could actually get a TV package with fibre optic broadband much cheaper from one of SKY’s main competitors, however none of these services are available in my area. I even pay for 4G data with EE, but of course I don’t actually get any signal where I live.

My point is that the telecommunications infrastructure in the UK is seriously lacking. Unless you live in a big city then chances are you have to put up with decades old technology which results in painfully slow broadband, poor mobile phone signal and high prices! I keep hearing companies such as BT and EE talking about rolling out data services to rural communities, but how long does this actually take? Ill be in old age before I get access to super fast fibre optic services.

Other countries are far ahead of the UK when it comes to data communications and frankly we are not doing enough to bring our services up to speed. It was funny hearing the Queens speech a few years ago when she stated the UK government would spend more money on infrastructure. Well it hasn’t made any difference to me because I’m still living in the stone age!

So the answer to my question of where do these prices come from is actually quite simple; they charge me extortionate subscription fees because they are my only option and they know it! The day fibre optic is available to all of the UK will be the day that SKY experiences proper competition and actually does something about it. I just can’t quite believe sometimes that its 2014 but yet I still only get broadband speeds similar to what I had about ten years ago! Moreover, people are now talking about 5G data services but I can’t even send a text message from my own home! There has to be something wrong there?

I really hate feeling disconnected, I hate not having access to fibre optic services, and I hate having to pay extra for services I can get as a result.

Tuesday will see the the launch of five new BBC HD channels: BBC Three HD, BBC Four HD, BBC News HD, CBeebies HD and CBBC HD. The BBC pledged to upgrade and expand its list of HD channels by 2014 and fortunately this will come at no extra cost. These new channels will be available on Freeview HD, Freesat HD, Sky HD, Youview and Virgin Media.

With many households not even receiving High Definition TV yet, it seems strange that a new even higher resolution is making an appearance. You may have heard of 4K but what exactly is it? Well current full High Definition content is broadcast in a 1920 x 1080 resolution. What that means is that the picture is made up of 1080 pixels vertically by 1920 horizontally. Pixels make up the image so the more of them there are then the sharper the image. So when we talk about 1080P High Definition we are referring to the amount of pixels up the vertical axis. The ‘P’ refers to ‘progressive scan’ but Ill bore you with that another time! If you multiply 1920 by 1080 then, you get 2,073,600. This is the total number of pixels.

So what exactly is 4K I hear you say? Well 4K (also known as Ultra HD) refers to the horizontal resolution. There are 4096 pixels horizontally but as this is close to 4000 we call it 4K. 4K resolution is actually 4096 pixels by 2160. As you can see then the resolution here is twice that of High Definition. The total amount of pixels however is four times that of High Definition (about 8 million) making for a very sharp picture indeed!

With only a hand full of 4K televisions available, retailing at well over £20,000, I’m sure none of us will be rushing out to buy one any time soon. 4K is on its way however. People with more money than sense will find some limited content to download from the internet, and YouTube has already started streaming 4K for premium customers. Domestic cameras capable of filming in 4K such as Gopro’s new Hero 3 black edition, are also starting to make an appearance. With everyone talking about 4K at the minute I’m sure 2013 is going be a big year!